


Longer Nights

by laratoncita



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Homophobic Language, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Latino Character, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 08:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19663153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: Zimms isn’t the only person who’s ever had a thing for popping pills.





	Longer Nights

**Author's Note:**

> title technically from "weekend" by mac miller. pls heed warnings. technically in the same universe as "coquito", though not a direct sequel.

I remembered how Ma burst into tears and Paps celebrated, shouting as if he was a mad scientist and I a marvel of his creation:  
"He's alive!"  
"He's alive!"  
"He's alive!"

_Justin Torres, We the Animals_

* * *

You’ve always preferred uppers. Valium, Xanax—that was Zimms thing. Needed something to get him out of his head for a little while, something to distract him from the endless drum of hockey in his veins. Maybe if he weren’t eating and breathing and sleeping hockey he wouldn’t have needed it, but with a father like Bad Bob, well. You can’t blame him, can you? And Bob _likes_ you. You can’t imagine being on the end of his disappointed sighs, screwed up eyes like you just made the biggest mistake of your life. You’d have killed yourself.

It’s not a new thought. You’ve had more than enough time to think about it over the last few years. Since before the draft, since before you ever left home for good. Used to lie in bed and think about what it might be like, to not have to wake up. Would your mother cry? Your sister? Your cousins, your aunts and uncles? Who would miss you, if you disappeared in the night?

You can’t let yourself think like that anymore. Your doctor wants you on pills but you don’t have the heart to take them. Let them sit in your drawers and pop different ones, instead, go out dancing with girls more often than you want. You like dancing. You like dancing with girls, even. Sometimes, though, they want you to take them home afterwards, and you’re pretty sure you couldn’t perform for them even without the pills you take. 

You go home alone and Kit sleeps elsewhere, on those nights. Like she’s ashamed of you. If that’s not enough to get you clean, though, then nothing else is. No one’s disapproval could touch you, not anymore. Zimms never had much to say about it. Nothing meaningful, at least. For him it came down to the game. As long as it wasn’t getting to you on the ice, he could care less. He cared about himself the same way, after all. You never liked the way you felt on downers, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t take them. You gave Zimms molly once and he nearly crawled out of his skin.

Never again, he said, like what he was taking was so much better. He should have been saying that since thirteen. Should have said so after that nasty hit that dislocated his shoulder at fourteen. After he kissed you, at fifteen. Everything that happened afterwards should have been a never-ending litany. In a lot of ways, it was. It ended, anyway. Zimms nearly dead in your arms and then gone forever. Bob wouldn’t answer your texts, your calls to Alicia straight to voicemail. Once, months later, on Christmas, you had one from them both. Full of apologies. Genuine sounding. You could imagine the sad eyes. The downturned mouths.

No offer to make it up to you. You used to celebrate birthdays with them. Part of you wants Jack to stay out of hockey not for himself, or for you, but so that you never have to remember the joyful expression on both their faces whenever Jack had a good play. Like they cared about him instead of the name. Like the pressure from everything wasn’t what nearly killed Zimms.

You can’t wrap your head around it _not_ being an accident. It’s not your business, anyway. But you know it can’t have been. He had to have been tired. Felt alone. Must have forgotten you were there. And now you’re not, on the other side of the country. He’s back in Montreal and you’re in Sin City, having had one hell of a rookie year. 

They’ve cut you loose for the summer. It stretches out beyond you, endless and overwhelming. Your mom wants to know when you’re coming home. Your cousin Joe stays blowing you up on the phone. Nobody knows what you’ve been up to. You have a reputation, now. Not a bad one. You’ve got a _gung-ho_ attitude. You’re a good dancer. Girls love it when you show up at a club.

The dirty hips will get you far on a dance floor, but then you have to leave with your arm around one of them and pretend you’re having a good time. You’ve slept with girls before, and you probably will again, and still the reality of it—that you’re in the NHL, and you’re good, and you’re never going to come out of the closet if you can help it—sits, heavier on your tongue than any little tab will ever be. The guys eat it up. You’re a star. You’re going to bring the Cup to this city.

You want to so badly you’ll do anything. Tear yourself apart if you have to. It’s nothing you haven’t tried before.

* * *

Joe doesn’t look anything like you, even if she looks like your mom. You came out all Parson. Desgraciado, like you’ve heard your aunts mutter after parties. Inútil, like your uncles say when they pretend not to gossip. Milagro, like your grandmother trying to pretend she didn’t like your eyes best. Joe is brown. Brown hair and eyes and skin, only a single eyebrow piercing now that she let the other two close. She has a septum one, now, and favors a heavier cat eye since you started playing in the NHL. She’s at NYU, and everyone thinks she’s wasting her time on an English degree, and she loves you almost as much as you do, her. 

You’re so lonely it aches. Take molly in the hopes that you can loosen up to bring someone home and pretend this is your new normal, but girls have never been your thing. You think maybe Joe knows that already, or if she doesn’t, it won’t surprise her. She’s seen your room back home. The two of you grew up thick as thieves, before you decided you were getting out of Spanish Harlem if it killed you and your family didn’t let her leave. 

Her being out here is a miracle. Your tíos might pretend differently but all they see when they look at her is property. They must remember all the shit they pulled, all the girls they did dirty. They must see their sister in her face, how her husband left her with two children and a struggling business. You don’t know if it would be better or worse if they knew what you were.

The words come easy. Puto. Maricón. Easy on the tongue like good rum, said half-laughing to each other and the TV and whoever cuts them off in traffic. Joe used to put up a fight. Say it wasn’t right. They turned around and called her soft. Don’t let her have boyfriends, even if she’s hid one or two in the years since you’ve left. 

_I miss you_ , she says when you pick her up from the airport. Present tense, not past. She flies into your arms and you have to hide your face in her hair, trying not to cry. Joe always cuts to the quick. Can fuck you up in no time and then put you back together the tiniest bit better. You wouldn’t be half the person you are without her, and she knows it.

You take her bag for her, open the car door for her like she’s your grandma or your mom. Like she needs to be taken care of, instead of being the person who’s been taking care of everyone else for ages. Her dad, now that her mom’s gone, your grandma in her free time, Telesita because she’s still little and you can’t be there for her. The drive to your place passes too quick, Joe prattling on about new plans for your mom’s shop, for Telesita’s spot on the swim team, for her classes next year. 

_Your mom wants you to come back already_ , she says as you walk into your apartment. Kit—barely a year old, vain and attention-starved like you don’t love her enough—grooms herself on the counter. You don’t have the heart to shoo her away.

_I know_ , you say, and take her bag to the guest room. You live in a three-room condominium that feels too big for just you. Doesn’t matter that you’ve filled it up like you have plans to stay. You want to ask Joe to just transfer out here, but she’d laugh in your face. She’s said she’d rather die than leave New York. You’re pretty sure the city’s going to kill her.

_You gonna?_ she asks when you come back. She’s sitting at the counter.

_What do you want to eat?_

_Whatever you have in your fridge_ , she says, like she doesn’t know it’s mostly eggs. You have a jar of salsa and some cheddar cheese, too, grapes and kiwis and one of those things that filter water for you. You grab a pan from the cupboard. She says, again, _So are you?_

_I don’t know_ , you say. Start the stove, crack eggs into a measuring cup. Add milk, stir. _You like pepper still?_

_Yeah_ , she says. _You need help?_

_No_ , you say. She’ll ask again in a second. She always does.

_I mean it_ , she says. It’s quieter. Maybe she’s remembering that fight you had last summer. You unwilling to admit the truth, her knowing it anyway. Drunk and bitter about it, all those millions waiting for you meaning nothing if you had nothing to come home to.

You look at her hands. She doesn’t wear acrylics anymore, and her nails look healthy. Strong. 

Say, _You still seeing that guy?_

_No_ , she says. _I don’t care about that._

_You should._

_Why?_

_You don’t wanna end up alone._ You turn, add the eggs to the pan. They sizzle. You stir once, twice, three times. They fluff up. Yellow like a drawn sun, like the ones Telesita used to draw for you when she was little. Before you left home. Before you decided you couldn’t stay.

_Abuela says that_ , she says to your back. You keep stirring. _I think it’s funny. Me with a man like they don’t talk shit. They wanna know which of them girls you’re going out with._

_What girls?_

_There are photos_ , she says, _you with some pretty things at the club. You was always better at dancing than me, but not by much._

_It’s the hips,_ you say. In your head you hear your uncles say maricón.

_I didn’t know you liked going out so much_ , she says, and when you turn to look at her you can see in her eyes that she knows everything about you. Always has and always will. You don’t know who you were trying to fool.

You don’t say anything.

She says, _Whatchu using, then, huh?_

_You don’t know what you’re talking about._

_I’m not dumb_ , she says. _I seen videos, too. You don’t move like that. Not sober._

_Don’t be stupid._

You plate your eggs. Grab the salsa, offers her cheese. She watches you as she pours too much salsa over her plate. You stay standing across the counter from her. You feel grown, but like you’re playing at it. Not even nineteen yet and living all by yourself. Paying your mom’s rent and buying your tías nice gifts for mother’s day. What a joke.

Joe says, _Don’t they test you for that shit?_

You say, _It’s off-season._

_So you getting sloppy, huh._

When you smile it feels ugly. _Yeah_.

She inhales. Maybe her voice is shaking. _You’re killing yourself._

_Yeah_ , you say, and then, _eat your eggs_.

* * *

Mornings after, you have to remember where you are. You still expect to wake-up to the robin’s egg blue of your room. Sometimes you think about putting up new Britney posters, but then you think of having your teammates over and feel a little sick. You think of the words you hear in the locker room. How you get loud in different ways to make up for how you duck your head. All of it echoes, anyway. In the moments that get too still and quiet. 

Maybe that’s why you can’t do the same shit Zimms did.

When you’re out, you can forget it. Swallow and it all fades away. For a little while, you're your own best friend and it doesn't sting. But in the mornings, it all comes rushing back like it never really left. You are everyone's favorite son and the one they would throw away just as easily. You can never forget it, not for real. Not in a way that counts. The curled lips, the dirty names. You don’t let yourself remember Jack. Don’t want to go back to where you’re unwanted even if feels like there’s something hooked behind your navel, trying to tug you back to him.

He doesn’t want you. You keep saying it out loud. Maybe one day it’ll stop tasting so bitter.

Until then, though, you’re going to keep finding yourself here. Dehydrated. More tired than you remember ever being, even if this isn’t your first time popping a dose or two and hoping for the best. People have died, right? The heat. The dying cells. You might have taken a class that touched on it, or at least seen a documentary. Those are more your style—Zimms, he likes them, too, but older ones. Things about history or hockey or both. You like the newer things. What’s in the food you eat? What does cocaine do to the brain?

Funny, really. All these rumors about Zimms doing lines and you’re the one swallowing little tablets in bathrooms. What’s ten or twenty dollars to you? You’re a millionaire. You own this condo. You paid off all your folks’ bills. Telesita wears diamonds in her ears and brand new shoes no matter where she goes. Nowadays, you're your own worst enemy.

Joe asked you which was worth it. Uppers or downers, she asked. You laughed in her face, counted your blessings afterwards. She’s a fighter. She doesn’t like being patronized. You told her you were just trying to have some fun, and she asked what would happen if the papers that called her your new lady instead of your cousin found out about that, too.

_Can’t be worse than me being somebody’s bitch_ , you told her, and her jaw went tight. She looks like your mother when she’s mad, more than she usually does. She's always seen through all your bullshit, and her June visit was no different.

You’re pretty sure she hates hockey, now. Your mother probably does, too. But that’s just two people. Two who are on the outside, the rest of your family and every other person in your life behind you every step of the way. Which matters more? Joe knowing you’re on the edge of something big, or everyone else waiting for you to bring them something like a crown? 

It doesn’t mean anything, you popping pills. You want to have a little fun. And it is, mostly. You say it to yourself often enough that the lies come easier. Yes, you're sleeping well. Yes, you're happy. No, you don't think about swallowing however many bottles of aspirin it would take to kill you. You just don’t want anyone to look at you and know what you’re hiding. That’s not asking too much.

You're doing great. You have everything you ever wanted. Don't you?


End file.
